Please open your Bibles to Matthew chapter seven. Hopefully you all have the notes in your handout so you can more easily follow along. I'm going to be again reading our text at verse one and read through verse 14, although the focus this morning will be on verses 13 and 14. Beginning in verse one, we read, judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if a son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him? Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. I wanted to read that section of the context for you to see that what Jesus has been describing here is a life in which we're going to always be tempted to sin and need correction from our brothers, and in which we're gonna have the difficult task sometimes of offering correction, and in which we're gonna find sometimes that the people we seek to correct aren't who they appear to be. They turn out to be dogs and swine, figuratively speaking, unbelievers, actually. And therefore, that we're gonna need to be praying a lot and counting on the goodness of our Heavenly Father to see us through. And so we shouldn't be surprised when we get to verses 13 and 14 and hear our Lord Jesus describing the road we're on as a difficult one. He says, beginning in verse 13, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life. And there are few who find it. Let's take a moment to pray. Holy Father, I do thank you so much that Jesus Christ has forgiven us our sins. For all of us who know you this morning, who have trusted in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone as our Savior and Lord, we thank you this morning that you have given your son Jesus to be the wrath-ending sacrifice of our sins, for our sins, and that you rose him from the dead, that he is seated at your right hand, having ascended on high, to the highest place at Your right hand where He rules over the universe and where we can call upon Him and where He ever lives to intercede for us, where we have an advocate with a Father in whom we can place all our trust. We thank You, Lord, not only that You've forgiven our past sins, but You forgive all of our sins. that we can always come to you confessing our sins, trusting that you are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and all because of what you've done for us through Christ. We thank you also that you've given us the gift of the Holy Spirit. We thank you that you've, through the power of the Spirit, opened our eyes so that we may see Christ for he truly is and you've enabled us to see and to enter the kingdom And Lord, we pray that through the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord, you would enable us to see what it is you'd want to say to us through your word today, because we've come here to hear what you have to say. Help us to listen, Lord. Give us hearts willing to receive what you have to say. Give us ears to hear, eyes to see. that we might better glorify you, that we might better magnify Christ, that we might leave here a little bit more conformed to his image through the power of your spirit and by your grace. We ask all these things in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Often when I read this text, I seem to be reminded of a famous poem by Robert Frost. Many of you may know it because it is a famous poem. It's called The Road Not Taken. And here's what he says, and not a very long poem, but it introduces a concept for us. He writes, two roads diverged in a yellow wood and saw I could not travel both and be one traveler long I stood and looked down as far as one could. to where it bent in the undergrove. Then took the other as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and watered, and wantered where, rather, though as for that, the passing there, it warned them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay, and leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how Way leads on to way. I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wooden eye. I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. Now, Robert Frost here wasn't talking about one's eternal destiny, I don't believe, but he does highlight well the notion that the choice one makes about which road to follow in their life can make all the difference. This is a point that Jesus is making in the text before us as well. He's talking about two roads that diverge in the life of everyone without exception. Except that he's talking about a choice one makes either to follow the road to destruction or the road to life. And which of these roads one chooses definitely does make all the difference. We're gonna see this difference very clearly as we look first at the road to destruction and then secondly at the road to life. So our first main heading here is the road to destruction. We see our Lord Jesus speaking of this road in verse 13. where he says, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it. So he set a choice before us, a narrow way we're supposed to enter and the dangerous broad way. Now here, Jesus clearly refers to the way or the road, it could be translated road, that leads to destruction. But what is the destruction that he's talking about? I think before we go any further, we have to answer that question. What does he mean here by destruction? Well, the same word for destruction is used later to describe the fate of the beast in the book of Revelation. This same word is used in Revelation 17, verse eight, where we're told, The beast that you saw was and is not and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. You know, in the book of Revelation, the beast is aligned with the Antichrist. This is a wicked, whatever the beast or whoever the beast is, very wicked being. He says, the beast that you saw was and is not and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. That's the same word that's used by our Lord Jesus in Matthew 7, 13. Apeleia means destruction. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was and is not and yet is. They're gonna marvel at his destruction, apparently. Now, without getting into speculation about the identity of the beast here, I could throw out theories, but at the end of the day, I haven't got a clue anyway. Without getting into speculation about that, Let's take a further look later on in the book of Revelation to get a better idea about what this destruction that has been mentioned, that the beast will endure, what it entails. How is it described? So we can get a better handle on what does Jesus mean when he uses the word? It speaks of destruction versus life. We see later on in Revelation 19 verse 20, and this is in the context in which Jesus is going to return, We're told, then the beast was captured and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. So the ultimate destruction of the beast apparently is going to be in this lake of fire. Doesn't sound pleasant. Later in the book, see an even more explicit description of the destruction Jesus has in mind when we get to Revelation 20, beginning in verse 10, where we read about the one who's behind the antichrist, the false prophet, the beast, the devil, Satan. And we read in Revelation 20, verse 10, that the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, the one previously mentioned, a place of destruction, where the beast and the false prophet are, the one previously mentioned, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. So it's described as a place of destruction. It's described of a place of fire. It's described as a place where they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. So it's everlasting, this experience of what is called destruction. It never ceases. And then we're told, then I saw a great white throne. John, John is telling this, the Apostle John. Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one according to his works. Then death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire." This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. So you have life and death here. You have life versus destruction, right? And that's what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7, 13, and 14, life versus destruction. He'd already brought up these things, right, way before the Apostle John got his revelation. Now that Jesus has this same fated mind for those who follow the road to destruction is seen not only in his use of the same word to describe this fate, the same word that we've seen in the book of Revelation, but is also seen in Jesus' own teaching later in the book of Matthew, where he has this final judgment in mind. And that's in Matthew 25. And I'll just read portions of the text here that deal with destruction. This is in the parable of the sheep and the goats, and Jesus separates them. And the goats are those who are unbelievers. They're the ones set aside for what Jesus has called destruction. They're the ones who are on the road to destruction. In Matthew 25, verses 31 through 33, we read this, when the Son of Man comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. We saw something about that throne in Revelation. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, and He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. And then later in verse 41, he says this, then he will say to those on the left, the goats, depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. We find out what that is in Revelation later on in more detail as we've already seen. So what's Jesus saying? That that place of destruction where the beast and the false prophet, the devil are at, right? And where death and Hades shall be thrown, right, referring to those who were not saved, who were in, right, encompassed in death and Hades, they'll be thrown there. This is where, he says, the goats, those who are unbelievers, are going to be, ultimately. It's the same fate. And we know what kind of fate that is, because we just read about it. It's an everlasting torment fate. We read in verse 46 that these will go away into everlasting punishment. We know why it's described as everlasting punishment. We get some commentary on that later on in the book of Revelation, right? So, when Jesus speaks of the road to destruction here, it's my contention that he's talking about the eternal destiny of the wicked. That's what he has in mind. But can we learn anything more in this context about this road from which Jesus, about which Jesus is teaching here? And my answer to that is yes, we can. In fact, we can see at least three specific details in Jesus' description of the road to destruction. First, we see that it has a wide gate. There's an entrance to this road to destruction. It's a gate, and it's a very wide gate, which means that it is an easy road to enter upon. And you don't have to look hard to find this gate either. As John Stott has observed, the gate leading to the easy way is wide, for it is a simple matter to get on the easy road. There's evidently no limit to the luggage we can take with us. We need, he says, leave nothing behind, not even our sins, self-righteousness, or pride. He's right about that, as we'll see. This wide gate doesn't impose the kind of restrictions a narrow gate would impose. It's very easy to go through, and that's probably the reason why so many choose it. And that leads us to the second thing about this road. Not only does it have a wide gate, it's a broad way. It's a wide way. It's a wide road. The Greek word translated broad here in the New King James Version that I'm using pertains to having ample room, to being broad, spacious, or roomy. It could be used of a large room in which one can live comfortably and unmolested, as Gingrich and Dunker put it in their lexicon. That's the kind of road about which Jesus speaks. In ancient Palestine, such a road would be much easier to travel in such rocky terrain, especially along the side of mountains, perhaps, because it's a very hilly, mountainous region, a lot of Palestine. Think about a very narrow path along the edge of a precipice and a very wide one. Which one would you rather be on, right? Which one would be easier? Well, most people would pick the wide one, right? Well, that's what Jesus is assuming here. More on that in a few moments. The point is, though, that the road to destruction is a very easy road. Just like the wide gate that leads to it, it really imposes no restrictions. It is in many ways what people might even call the path of least resistance. A person can believe anything he wants to believe on this road, It is the road of relativism. It is the road of syncretism, in which religions are meshed together. It's the road of inclusion. It's the road of so-called tolerance, where anything goes, except saying that there's absolute truth, right? It's that kind of road. Pastor Joe McKeever of Kenner, Louisiana, tells of a woman who, although a professed Christian, appears to be on this broad road. He writes this, a lady wrote to the editor of our local paper the other day, upset that someone suggested homosexuality is forbidden in the Bible, which it is, in no uncertain terms, by the way. I know none of you are surprised to hear me say that. My God, she wrote, is a God of love and not a God of judgment. We talked about that when we talked about the bad reading that people give to Matthew 7, one through five a few weeks back, right? About Christians aren't supposed to judge and we debunked that silly myth, right? Jesus is talking about judging correctly versus incorrectly there. Not about his not expecting us to make moral judgments, he expects us to do that all throughout the text, right? And so when we say that along with scripture, we didn't make up the rules, homosexuality is a sin, we're making a moral judgment, and we're doing it on purpose, and we're doing it because it's the right thing to do. This woman didn't like it. So, my God, she wrote, is a God of love and not of judgment. Now, the lady is free, writes Pastor McIver, to worship whomever she pleases, and if she wants to make up her own God who will let her do as she will, well, it's been done for thousands of years. My only question to her is, where did you find this God without standards? certainly not in the Bible, open it at any page, and you will see this God makes demands on his people. He sets limits on their behavior, and he holds them responsible. I suspect the writer created her God from her own imagination. This puts her Lord in the same class as a rag on a stick in Botswana, a volcano in the South Pacific, or a statuette in a Singapore flat. God-making has a certain appeal. Your creation can look like anything you choose, and it approves whatever you want to do. And I'm glad he made those analogies, because in Western culture, it's common for people to look down on other cultures who have symbols, idols of their gods, and forget that they have plenty of idols of their own. Lots of people make God in their own images. John Calvin once wrote, our hearts are like idol factories. We just have a tendency to churn them out. Right? And that's why God speaks so strongly about it in scripture. Most people's idol, number one idol though, is themselves. That's probably who that woman's real idol was. Yes, on the broad road you can do whatever you want. This is also the road that so many of the ancient Israelites followed to their own hurt, as the author of Judges tells us in Judges 21-25. He writes, in those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Of course, the king was supposed to have been God, the Lord, Yahweh. They didn't want to acknowledge him as such. Why? Well, that's the narrow road. They wanted to be on the wide road, where you can do anything you want, think anything you want, believe anything you want. Perhaps this is why so many people choose this road, because it allows them to be and do whatever they want, whatever's right in their own eyes. And this brings us to the third characteristic of the road to destruction, the broad road, the broad way. It has many travelers. highly populated road. Kent Hughes is on the right track when he writes this. Other than platitudes about the good of the majority or the consensus of the people, the wide road imposes few boundaries on conduct. It takes no effort to remain on its broad stretch. It inflicts a deceptive sense of freedom and independence. But the trip itself is all that it has to offer and is unsatisfying throughout. Many of us used to be on that road and know exactly what he means. He goes on to write, though it is the wrong road, Jesus says that many enter through it. The road is heavily traveled. In fact, most people prefer it. You are never alone on the broad road that leads to destruction. Eventually, the road comes to the edge of an abyss, and there it stops, but the travelers do not. As Solomon put it, In Proverbs 16, 25, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. Thankfully, however, this way of death and destruction is not the only way about which Jesus speaks. He tells us that we can choose another road. That's the road to life. He says in the beginning of verse 13, enter by the narrow gate, and then he picks this up again in verse 14, because narrow, he says, is the gate, and difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Now, just as with the road to destruction, so with the road to life, Jesus has in mind one's eternal destiny. We've already seen the fate of the wicked as taught by Jesus later on in the passage about the sheep and the goats. But I wanna go back there now to look at what he says about the righteous, about the sheep, about those he would say in this text are on the narrow road. He says this in Matthew 25, beginning in verse 31. When the Son of Man comes in all his glory and all his holy angels with him, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, which we read earlier, And he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, the sheep, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And then in verse 41, he goes on to say, then he will say to those on the left hand, depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And then in verse 46, and these will go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. I read that about the wicked again to see the contrast. The righteous into eternal life. There's everlasting punishment or there's everlasting life. There's destruction or there's life. There's a broad way, there's a narrow way. The broad way leads to that destruction and the narrow way leads to life. everlasting life, Jesus says. And we find here that the road to life, the one that leads to everlasting life, it's life in the kingdom, ultimately the kingdom of heaven. And this makes me wanna know a little bit more about this road, so I'm happy to see that our Lord Jesus, just as he did regarding the road to destruction, goes on to give us three specific details about the road to life. in contrast to the road to destruction. First of all, it has a narrow gate. And Jesus actually stressed this point twice. He said in verse 13, he commanded us to enter the narrow gate. And then in verse 14, he said it again. He described the gate as narrow. The same Greek word is actually used in the Septuagint, that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. It's the text that you find most quoted in the New Testament by Jesus and the apostles. And it helps to shed some light on this passage and what Jesus means by narrow. In Numbers 22, 26, and here we're dealing with the account of Balaam and his donkey, And remember, the angel of the Lord came and stood in front, wouldn't let the donkey pass, and it irritated Balaam. Well, this is a description of that angel. And in Numbers 22, 26, we read, then the angel of the Lord went farther and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left. So it was so narrow that the donkey wouldn't be able to turn around in it. And he stopped there in front of there. That's the kind of thing that this word narrow has in mind. So with this word, our Lord Jesus emphasizes that this gate imposes restrictions upon the one who would enter it. It has boundaries that must be honored, just as he himself has taught in other passages. For example, we read in John 10, nine, our Lord Jesus says this, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. There's only one door. It's through Jesus. You only enter into life through Jesus. So when he says to enter through the narrow gate, ultimately it's through faith in him that he's talking about entering, right? He says in John 14.6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The narrow gate by which we enter onto the narrow road, that's faith in Christ. He's the gate, ultimately. So the narrow gate is not the inclusive gate by which one gains access to the road to destruction. Rather, it is an exclusive gate. You can't believe in anything you want. You can't believe in any God you want. You must trust in Christ as the way, the truth, and the life, to be on the road to life, and in Christ alone and in no other. And we should never be ashamed to make this exclusive truth claim, just as the Apostle Peter made it. We read in Acts 4.12, he said there, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. And there he's referring to Jesus Christ, our Lord. We must be careful to proclaim this truth with boldness, with clarity, especially in our increasingly pluralistic and relativistic society. Our society is all about the broad road. that leads to destruction. And they're seeking to broaden that road every day, and make it broader and broader, even, figuratively speaking. The road to life has a narrow gate, and we must say so. One way to the Father, and that's through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. One way of salvation, one way of life, and one only, But not only does the road to life differ from the road to destruction because of its gate, it also differs in that it's not a broad, easy way, and that leads us to the next thing that Jesus tells us about it. It's a difficult way. It's hard. It's not easy. The Greek word translated Difficult here, this verb phlebo, we get the word phlepsis from it, it's used, the noun, this is a verb, the noun is used to describe tribulation and trials in the New Testament, typically or suffering. It strictly means to press or rub together, to compress or to make narrow. Thus a leading Greek lexicon suggests that the passage here may be translated literally, restricted is the road that leads to life. That is, in order to receive eternal life, they write, one must live as God requires. I think that puts a works emphasis on it. I'm not sure who wrote that lexical entry, but let's just say he wasn't someone who believes in salvation by grace through faith alone, and quite the way I do, because I would put it this way. It's restricted in that we enter it not by doing what God requires, but by trusting in Jesus who has done what God requires on our behalf. That's the way I would put it. So a little correction to the Pryberg lexicon there for you. This word also often figuratively means to afflict, to oppress, to cause trouble, and it's used that way often in the New Testament, to experience hardship or be afflicted. And so this word group, this verb, and this noun, flipsis, that goes with it, they're often used in the New Testament to describe the sufferings, the trials, the tribulations into which we enter in the Christian life. D.A. Carson observes that this word almost always refers to persecution. So this text says that the way of discipleship is narrow, restricting, because it is the way, rather, of persecution and opposition, which is the major theme in Matthew. We already saw that in our study of the Beatitudes, remember, back in chapter five, verses 10 through 12, where Jesus said this, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven." You know, those who are in the kingdom of heaven, those on the road to life, what can they expect? Right at the start of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is telling us what we can expect. Hardship, even persecution. So we're not surprised to see here that he says that this is a difficult way. It also fits with Jesus' teaching elsewhere. For example, in John 16, 33, Jesus said this to his disciples, these things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have tribulation. Phlipsis, that's the noun that goes with the verb we read earlier. But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. What can we expect as believers who are in the world but not of the world, as Jesus prayed that we would be? We can expect difficulty, we can expect trials, tribulations, even persecution. That's what the narrow way is like. The apostles were also faithful to teach about the difficulty of the road to everlasting life in the kingdom. In Acts 14, verses 21 to 22, we're told that when they, referring to Paul and Barnabas, had preached the gospel to that city, which I believe was Derbe, and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, saying, we must, through many tribulations, enter the kingdom of God. Flips is there the noun again. What's that? It's just a reminder. Remember, you're on the narrow road. It's a hard road. And he doesn't want them to have any illusions about that. He wants them to be faced the reality of the road that they're on. So Jesus and his apostles after him, they clearly warned about the difficulty of the road to life. Over and over they warned about it. As Kent Hughes aptly observes, having entered the narrow gateway to life, the traveler finds that the road remains narrow. Christ is absolutely upfront about the fact that the road remains narrow and difficult. There is no attempt to lure us onto the road with assurances that though it will be difficult at first, the road's contour will eventually widen. It doesn't do that, because it isn't true. How unlike Christ and the apostles so many teachers and preachers are today, right? The last thing they want to mention in their pulpits is how hard the Christian life is supposed to be, not just can be, Tribulations, trials, spiritual warfare are not a bug in God's plan. They're a feature of it. It's what the narrow road's supposed to be like, not just what it can sometimes be like. Now, sometimes it's more like that than at other times. God did give us periods where we get peace, right? And we don't have trials and tribulations of various kinds. But that's not the typical experience on the road. to life. You show me a professing believer that never has any difficulties, and I'll show you someone whose faith I question. That sounds like the broad road. Jesus tells us how to tell the difference. There are preachers today that often readily appeal to our desires for personal peace and As Francis Schaeffer would put it, the two values left, he says, in Western culture are personal peace and influence. Many of them overtly preach that God has given us all the money and healing we could ever want. They would even say, if your life is hard, that means you must not be on the right road. They completely turn it around. and say the opposite of what Jesus says, and then claim to be preaching the gospel. It's so obvious the lie that they're telling. But as dangerous as those kind of preachers are, there's name it, claim it, prosperity gospel preachers, there are many who are perhaps equally dangerous but more subtle. These are the preachers who tell us about the many blessings we can have in Christ, such as forgiveness, enjoying the spirit, which is true, but they forget or deliberately refuse to tell us about the many temptations and trials that await us as Christians. It's all the positive side and none of the stuff people don't like to hear. They tell us of victory in Christ, but they don't tell us as readily about the many battles that there are left to fight. They tell sinners that God has a wonderful plan for your life, but they fail to inform them that that plan has many difficulties in it, God-ordained difficulties. It's a good plan, it's a wonderful plan of trials and tribulations and struggles on the way to salvation, on the way to the kingdom, on the road to life. Now, thankfully, we don't have to wait to experience that life in the future because Jesus says those who believe in him already have everlasting life. We're spiritually alive already forever. In the future, we'll have new resurrection bodies and live in the new heavens and the new earth forever in the kingdom of heaven. That's our ultimate hope, right? Along the way, how are we conformed to the image of Christ? The author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience through the things which he suffered. And there are preachers out there that seem to think they're greater than their master. Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered. I don't need to suffer to learn obedience, though. What, are you better than Jesus, really? Then who do you think you are? Well, your own God is who you think you are, apparently. He said, the idol factory's at work again. I get to determine how things are, not the Lord, under that scheme. All too many evangelists can be heard emphasizing the blessings to be had in Christ, which they should emphasize. But without ever speaking of any hardships that await their converts. Didn't sound like Paul and Barnabas, did it? Or Jesus, most importantly. Jesus, however, was always, always very clear about the hardships. Where in the Sermon on the Mount, this famous teaching he gave, there's hardship all over the place. He begins it with hardship in the Beatitudes, as we've seen. And it's always in the background throughout, and he brings that out very strongly again here. He doesn't hide the truth or tell partial truths to people whom he loves. Yet people, many so-called evangelists out there say they love people and that's why they want to share the gospel. And they probably do mean that. They're probably sincere in saying it, but they don't tell them the whole truth. And that's sad. And no wonder. No wonder there were so relatively few people who responded positively to Jesus' message. People then don't like to hear about hardship any more than people now do. People are people. People have always been people. People have always wanted the path of least resistance. Always, no matter what culture you go to, no matter what time in history you go to, people are people. And they want an easy way. And that's why idolatry has been the norm everywhere. It still is today, everywhere. Not just in some countries, everywhere. People have always been people. They've always been sinners. And this is what sinners are like. Jesus wasn't stunned then by how few people responded positively to his message. Didn't surprise him in the least. He knew this was to be expected on the road to life, which leads us to our final aspect of this road to life. It has few travelers. It has few travelers. Now, I think Jesus said that to encourage rather than to discourage his disciples. How easily we can begin to think that because we're relatively few in number, maybe we've made the wrong choice. Sometimes when you're in a minority, you feel like maybe there's something wrong with you. Jesus doesn't want his disciples or us to think that way. I mean, we might think, how can so many people be so wrong? Well, they're sinners, that's how. We need to be encouraged that This minority position is just the position that Jesus was in. The minority position we're in isn't new. Jesus was in a minority position. His disciples were in a minority position. And he told us we would be in a minority position. He told us we're on a narrow road with few people versus the broad road with many people. We will always be in a minority. according to our Lord, because he's describing what the road is like, not what it's like sometimes, but what it's like all the time. Now, there may be times in history where it looks like there's a majority of Christians, but looks can be deceiving. If you look at polls, some polls might show that the majority of American citizens are Christians. We all know that's a lie. Right? Start asking some of those so-called Christians what they believe, and you'll find out very quickly they're nominally Christian, but they don't know what Christianity even really is, most of them. So then, the fact that we're so few is in reality not necessarily an indication that we're wrong, but an indication that we're right. if we're taking seriously what Jesus says. Because it's just what we should expect if we're on the right way. Remember also what Jesus said elsewhere in Matthew 22, 14, many are called but few are chosen. And so we're reminded there that those few who are on the road to life are not on that road because they're better than other people. or inherently wiser in their ability to choose God, but rather because of God's grace in choosing them. I'm not on the road to life because I could figure out something that other people couldn't figure out because I was smarter than them, or because I was more intelligent and had innate spiritual wisdom that they did not possess. I'm on the road to life because God in his grace chose me and put me on that road. And so there's no room for pride. There's no room for boasting. Nobody who's on the narrow road thinks he or she ought to be boasting in anyone other than Christ, the one who made the road possible, the one through whom you get on the road, the one who keeps you on the road all the way to the end and never lets you go. and you're in his hand and nobody can take you out of his hand, nothing. We're on the road, we stay on the road, we get to the end of the road because Jesus puts us on the road, keeps us on the road and takes us all the way. Remember as we conclude the ending of the poem I read earlier from Robert Frost, I shall be telling with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence, two roads diverged into wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. This morning I pray that each of us has recognized that there are two roads that diverge in the life of everyone. The road to destruction, the road to life, and the one less traveled by is the right one. the narrow road, and it makes all the difference in the world. For those of you who may not yet know Jesus as Savior and Lord, we're currently on the broad road that leads to destruction. Thankfully, it's not too late to get off that road. Thankfully, you can get on the right road today. How do you do that? I've already said. I quoted to you Jesus' words. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. He is the gate through which you enter into the sheepfold. It is through Christ that you enter onto the right road. You trust that Jesus Christ, you believe the truth that Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, when it was fully God and fully man in some mysterious way, yet in one person. We don't understand this. There's a lot we don't understand about God, because he's infinite and we're finite. That means there's always gonna be a lot we don't understand about God. Forever we'll be learning about God, I suspect, in heaven, because he's always gonna be infinite and we're always gonna be finite. So there's things we don't understand, but we know this is true. Jesus was fully God and fully man in one person. in such a way that his deity didn't detract or add to his humanity, and his humanity didn't detract from or add to his deity. We do not understand it. But he lived a perfectly sinless, a perfectly righteous life, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves, keep the law, live righteous lives. He did it in our place. And then he died on the cross in our place, And God poured out the wrath on him that we deserve. And having conquered death, he rose from the dead, and he ascended to the Father's right hand, and he reigns forever over the universe. And he is alive now, offering you the narrow gate, saying, if you put your faith in him, You don't trust in your own efforts, your own ability to do anything. You put your faith alone in Christ alone, that he will save you by his grace alone, and he will give you the free gift of everlasting life. He will forgive you all your sins. And then you'll be on the difficult road with the rest of us, where, even through all the difficulties, you'll have peace that passes understanding and joy unspeakable. Those things are true. You find them through the difficulties because of the difficulties rather than in spite of them. That's the road. For those of us who already know Christ, who are already on the narrow road, we need to remember to give God all the praise and the glory for it because it's by his grace alone that we're on this road. None of us deserves to be on it. We know that. I also pray that we won't be discouraged when we find the road difficult and with so few travelers on it, thinking that maybe we made the wrong choice. After all, how can so many people out there be wrong? We need to remember that the fact that it's difficult and there are so few on it isn't an indication it's the wrong road, it's an indication it's the right road. And we need to be encouraged by that. These should strike us as encouraging words from our Lord. We live in a time and place where large crowds and plenty of hype are what most people consider to be the indicators of true success. But we have to remember not to judge our supposed success or lack thereof by standards set by people on the broad road. They haven't got a clue what success is in the kingdom of heaven. It's time churches stop listening to them when they try to gauge the success of their ministries. They have no idea what they're talking about. Why on earth would we listen to them? We have the word of God to tell us what success in ministry looks like. and that's where we should go to find it. We need to judge our efforts in accordance with the standards of the narrow road that leads to life in accordance with the word of God and not the wisdom of men. Let's take a moment to pray. Holy Father, I do hope that I've been able to bring out important lessons from this text in the light of the whole of scripture that we need to remember. It's so easy to get downhearted to grow weary and well-doing, as the Apostle Paul put it, when we encounter difficulties in this life. Struggles, pain, sickness, death of loved ones, persecution even. It's easy to grow weary and well-doing, which is why your word warns us not to grow weary and well-doing. Lord, help us to always remember that it's in our weakness that you are strong. Help us never to forget that you put us on this road, you'll keep us on this road to the end. We can always trust you for that. For anyone here today who is struggling and feeling weary because of the trials they're going through, I pray that you would encourage them that what's happening to them is not some strange thing, but it's common to all true believers And it means that there's something right with them, not that there's something wrong with them. It means that you love them and you're teaching them obedience through the things that they're suffering. It means that as a heavenly father, you're disciplining them, perhaps, or you're certainly conforming them more to the image of Christ through their struggles. And help them not to become discouraged, I pray. And for any who has not come yet to know you, we pray that he or she today will bow the knee to Jesus as Lord and receive the free gift of everlasting life, forgiveness of sins, and the joy of being on the narrow road. We ask these things for our good, but most of all for your glory, and in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. Thank you once again for your kind attention.